Page 42 of When We Were Magic
“No,” she says, her voice cracking. “I mean I can’tremember him, I can’t—it’s like there’s a hole there, I can’t remember anything about him, I can’t—oh my god, my mom.”
“Paulie? Are you, I mean—obviously you’re not okay, but—”
“I have to go,” she says, sniffing again. She sounds far away. “I’m sorry, but I have to go, I have to talk to my mom, I have to look at those pictures—I don’t remember him, I have to remember him—”
“It’s okay, go, go, go,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I love you, call me if you need to, okay?”
“I will, love you bye,” she says in a rush, and then she hangs up and I’m sitting in my bedroom, alone in the silence.
How could she forget Drew? How could she forget him between the time we left school and the time she got home?
My phone lights up. It’s the group text. I check it, and even though the latest messages aren’t from her, Iris’s voice chimes in my memory.Have you noticed anything weird these last few days? Have you noticed anything missing?
Why, yes, I think to myself.I have noticed something missing.
I stare at my phone for half an hour or so, not doing anything, just waiting to see if Paulie texts me to say that it was all one big misunderstanding or some kind of very inappropriate joke. But she doesn’t—all the messages that come in are from Maryam and Marcelina, who are planning some kind of hair tutorial video for Maryam’s channel.
Eventually, I realize that Paulie is probably not going to be getting in touch with me tonight. She’s probably sitting with her mom and relearning everything she’s somehow suddenly forgotten about Drew. I take my phone off silent and put it on vibrate, tucking it into my bra so I’ll know if she tries to reachme. I could leave it behind, but I don’t want to miss a call from her. Not right now.
Then I walk out of my room and down the hall. I knock on Nico’s bedroom door. He opens it and stands in the doorway with his hair mussed and one headphone in, wearing pajama pants and a ratty T-shirt with a band I hate on the front. I grab him and hug him tight enough that he grabs me back.
“You okay?” he says, sounding less weirded out than he could.
“I’m okay,” I reply. “I just love you, is all.”
He pushes me away and looks into my face. “Are you crying?” His eyes are wide. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened, Nic,” I say, but I wipe my eyes on the hem of my shirt. “Sorry I got your shoulder all wet. When did you get tall enough for me to get your shoulder wet, anyway?”
He grins at me. “Like … a week ago? All my bones hurt.” He laughs, and I laugh, and then I hug him again and he hugs me back. I cry on my too-tall, growing-up-fast little brother until I stop being scared to let him go.
13.
ON THURSDAY MORNING I WAKEup to a dozen texts from Iris.I’m so sorry, can we talk, call me, call me, call me.A thousand sad and embarrassed emojis.
I don’t know how to feel about Iris talking to my dads. On the one hand, I know I shouldn’t be mad. She wasn’t trying to get me in trouble—she was just worried. I probably would have done the same thing, and hearing about how I made Dad and Pop worry by going AWOL makes me understand even better why she would be so stressed by my disappearance. Besides, I’m not even grounded. The only thing that happened was that my dads got upset and I had to apologize, and then I had to apologize again to Pop this morning and have a whole big talk with him. And I spent last night feeling guilty. But that’s about my thoughtlessness, which isn’t Iris’s fault. It’s nothing to be upset about, really. That’s obvious and reasonable.
But on the other hand … I know I’msupposedto be mad. I know that’s what a girl in my situation is expected to do. IfI watched a movie where this exact situation played out, the girl playing my role would be outraged that her friend got her in trouble; she would make it a huge thing, force Iris to apologize, hold it over her friend’s head as relational leverage.You owe me, she’d say later, and she would use that for as long as she could.
I know that I’m supposed to be angry with Iris. I’m supposed to not speak with her, and I’m supposed to start a lot of turmoil about it. I have a free pass right now to be pissy and dramatic, and I know it’s what everyone expects from me. Not because of who I am and how I act, but because that’s how these situations go. She got me in trouble. I’m supposed to pitch a fit.
But I’m justnot mad at her. I know that she did the right thing, even though it got me in trouble. I keep looking for any part of me that might be angry with her, but it’s not there. I completely understand where she was coming from, texting my dads, and even though I wish she hadn’t, I get it. And I bet I would have done the same thing, if Roya or Paulie or Maryam or Marcelina or Iris had vanished without notice.
It would be easy to just feel what I feel and not be mad at her, except for the guilt. I feel so awful for making Dad and Pop worry, for making them think that I didn’t care about their feelings. I was an asshole to them—there’s no way around that. I didn’t consider them, the fact that they love me and notice me. I got so wrapped up in my own world that I basically forgot about them altogether—these men whodevoted their lives to raising me and loving me. I forgot them. And I feel so awful about it, and it would beso much easierto blame it all on Iris instead of feeling awful.
But Dad and Pop raised me right, which means that I recognize the way I’m looking for an out, which means I can’t really take it. Right?
I’m all tangled up. I think about it all morning instead of texting Iris back. I zone out in more than one class, trying to figure out if I’m mad at her or not. I think about Paulie’s reaction to what happened, and it feels like an open door to doing the wrong thing.Why would Iris snitch on you?
Every time I replay last night’s conversation in my head, though, I stop thinking about Iris altogether. I think about Paulie every time I come back around to the talk we had—her forgetting her brother, her finding out that he was dead. Every time I think about her, I send her a check-in text. She doesn’t respond. She’s not in school and she’s not posting on social media. Between classes, I ask Maryam if she’s heard from Paulie, and she says no.
“I haven’t heard from herorRoya since yesterday,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. “But I’m sure they’re okay. We would have heard if they weren’t.”
I chew on my lip. “I don’t know if Paulie’s okay. Can I tell you what’s going on with her? I promise it isn’t gossip.”
Maryam purses her lips for a second. She doesn’t listen to gossip. It’s something that’s important to her—a principle she stands by, no matter how hard it can be to navigate highschool without tuning in to rumors. Ultimately, though, she trusts me enough to nod.
I tell her about Paulie’s lost memories of Drew. Her eyes go wide.
